The Last Supper
by belladonnacordial
Summary: Tom and Harry discuss Harry's fate over a dining table. Warnings for light slashiness, slight nausea, and possible indigestion. Hufflepuffs will not care for this. Brave Gryffindors, clever Slytherins, and avid Ravenclaws may find something worthy here.


Light slashiness- Tom and Harry discuss Harry's fate over a dining table. 

The Last Supper

In the midst of the final battle something curious happened which no one on the side of Light expected. Harry and Voldemort both seemed to freeze in place for perhaps half a second.

Harry blinked and when he opened his eyes again he was not on the battlefield. He wondered vaguely if he were dead. He didn't feel dead. He didn't feel quite himself either. He knew he wasn't alone here, where ever he was. He seemed to be standing in a void. All around was a roiling swirl of what looked like every color of paint. "Harry Potter."

It was not Voldemort's voice. It was the voice of Tom Riddle. Harry concentrated on that voice and found he was looking at Tom who seemed no older than Harry and was standing in the void with him, about two arms lengths away. If they both reached out, Harry thought crazily, they could shake hands. "Hello Tom. Where are we?"

"We are soul to soul Harry. A fitting place for my victory, do you not think so?"

"Your victory? Bit early to start celebrating seeing as how I haven't surrendered and am still here, soul to soul or what ever." Harry concentrated on what was here that wasn't Tom. All of that was familiar. Yes, he knew most of this- landscape- intimately so he ignored what he knew and concentrated on the foreign part again.

"Harry, we both know you have no hope of winning. You never have. You've made do with the hopes of most of the Wizarding World, but you've never had any of your own. You are quite literally, a hopeless Gryffindor, a teenaged boy who has never been allowed to hope or to do much of anything else, until now."

"Now? You want me to start hoping right before you kill me? Is that your idea of cruelty? Funny. Somehow I was expecting more from you."

"Yes, but you do expect me to kill you, illustrating my point. All of Wizardom expects me to kill you, Harry, but-"

"Look, if I'm going to have to listen to your lengthy evil victory monologue, we might as well be comfortable." Harry reached out with his mind and started to transfigure.

First he transfigured a pleasant room, through the windows flowering trees and a rose garden bloomed. Then came a chandelier and a table with two chairs. Harry sat. "I'm famished. Missed breakfast on account of your sneak attack." He filled his plates with all his favorites- right down to a treacle tart for afters. "Mmm," Harry said shoveling a bit of roast beef and mashed potato into his mouth. He chewed slightly and swallowed, "as you were saying? Oh sorry, there's not much food. If you were to concede defeat, I might be willing to share?"

Tom laughed. "No need to share, Harry." He sat down at the place Harry had set for him. The truth was he had no appetite at all and found Harry's choice of foods and wine most unappealing- not so, the boy now eating it. The rest, he agreed, was a rather fine idea on Harry's part. The chair felt especially good. "How like you, Harry, to expend so much power for the mere illusion of a last meal. It doesn't have to be your last, though. That is why I wished to speak to you."

"Oh," Harry said and smiled a bit sadly, washing the smile away with some wine. His tongue caught a bit dribbling down his lip. "I guess this is the part where the villain offers the poor hapless hero some sort of an evil deal that the hero can't accept? Okay then, get on with it." Harry gazed at Tom mildly, stuffing his peas and carrots away with the sort of enthusiasm that would have made Ron Weasley proud.

"I'm far from the only villain in your life's story, Harry. Doesn't it bother you that the whole of the Wizarding World would waste you, toss you away? For what? A martyr? A sacrifice? You are a very powerful wizard- intelligent enough, bold, resourceful- you know your strengths. Unfortunately, you are also very young, brash, sentimental, and shamefully unschooled thanks to a pack of fools who fancy themselves teachers. How many dark spells do you know? A pitiful handful? I could teach you everything I know. We could discover the rest together. After that we could invent magic never before imagined. You could rule this miserable world at my side. You could be my son, my brother," as Tom watched, Harry started licking his empty plate, quite seductively too, "or my lover if you would prefer. We could be as one, live forever, and never be lonely again."

Harry said nothing, he set a plate of fruit salad on his empty dinner plate and fell on it like a starving man. Tom continued. "Perhaps you want none of that. Perhaps all you want is freedom. Would you like that Harry? To be free of me, free from my laws and my reign, asylum in the world, safety for yourself and everyone you call a friend. I could give you this- I could give this to you so completely that even I couldn't take it away."

Harry finished his salad quickly and licked that plate too. Then he swallowed down the last of his wine and licked, actually licked, his glass clean. Tom waited patiently enjoying the show. He could feel the boys interest in this offer and his shame for being interested. Tom wasn't the least bit surprised. Anyone can be tempted and trapped. All that is required is the right bait.

Finally Harry looked up from his empty wine glass. Tom could see his victory in Harry's warily hopeful eyes. "Just what would you want for my freedom?"

"I'll have the whole world, Harry. What would it be for me to give you some little section of it. All I would ask is that you remain in your slice. Do not allow your friends to convince you to meddle in my affairs ever again."

Harry looked deep in thought as he took the treacle tart and started nibbling the corner. He held his other hand under to catch crumbs.

"I'd want Snape and Bellatrix too," Harry said pointedly before taking a big bite, savouring the sticky sweet pastry then licking crumbs and treacle from his other hand.

Watching the boy eat was nothing short of hypnotic. Yes, his manners were atrocious. His manners or lack of them were part of his appeal. "Fine, you'll have them, to do with as you will. They are nothing to me."

"I'd want Hogwarts, all the grounds, including the lake and the Forbidden Forest. That would be my little slice of the world that you and yours will never touch, Tom," Harry said, taking another bite catching a bit in his hand, while pressing the rest into his already full mouth.

"I knew we could settle this reasonably. What else do you want, Harry? Keep in mind that I can afford to be most generous."

Harry seemed to think hard about that all the while he chewed. When his overstuffed mouth was finally empty again, he asked, "Other than this very last bit of treacle tart, you mean?" Harry held open his left hand, the one he carefully had used to catch all his crumbs.

That was when Tom realized exactly what Harry had been eating, just as Harry licked the very last sticky bits into his mouth and swallowed, just before Lord Voldemort blinked out of existence forever.

Before Harry ended his transfiguration spells and returned to the battle, he thought- now that was the trouble with House-Elves! They caused Wizards to forget what food was, that it lived once, that it -came- from somewhere. "Wasn't too difficult to decide what to have," Harry informed the now empty chair. "Nothing here to transfigure apart from my soul and that tiny bit that was left of yours." You are what you eat, a little voice in his head reminded him. Right then, Harry decided that he had no earthly idea how he had defeated Lord Voldemort. It must have been his mother's love.


End file.
